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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Introduction
One of the more frequent questions that we are asked is "how do I get on the first page of Google?" It seems like a sensible question and of course, we would always aim to help your website achieve just that. However, this article will explain why that question is so hard to answer and also why it is not the best question to ask at all. Confused? Then keep reading.
How Does Google Work?
The answer to this question is of course the holy grail when it comes to web design and web marketing. We all want to rank as high as possible and Google must decide, amongst the millions of web pages it crawls every hour, which should appear and in what order. Unfortunately, unless you work in the inner realms of Google, you will never find out the answer. Luckily, many people attempt to reverse engineer search results to try to build a model of how Google probably works. We shall summarize their findings.
Top 5 Ranking Factors
The top 5 factors that determine your website's Google page ranking are, according to the leading search engine optimization (SEO) experts:
- Keyword focused Anchor Text from external links - this means that when a website links to your website, the visible words contained in the link tell Google what your website probably contains.
- External link popularity - This means that Google ranks your site depending on the quality and quantity of the external links pointing to your site.
- Diversity of link sources - This means that the more domains (the addresses of websites) that link to your site the better; many links from the same source do not help as much as one link each from lots of differnet sources.
- Keyword use in the title tag - The title tag (usually right at the top of your browser window when you are looking at a website) tells Google what your page should be about and it appears that Google cares more about the keywords in the title than about the keywords on your pages.
- Trustworthiness of the domain - Google attempts to rate your domain for trustworthiness, based on various sources, including where it is hosted (it can be affected by other domains on the same hosting).
How Do Those Ranking Factors Affect My Site?
If you notice, 4 of the top 5 ranking factors have nothing, in principal, to do with the actual content of your website; they are all based on external links to your website instead. Upon inspection, it is clearly a better model for Google if it judges your website based on how it is viewed by other websites. The more "trusted" and higher-ranked websites that link to your website the better; it is akin to asking "around town" for who is recommended when it comes to a particular job.
One misconception is that there is a "magic formula" when it comes to website design in terms of how it affects your Google ranking. To be sure, the overall design of a website should follow Google's best practises, included having correct title tags, meta descriptions and meta keyword tags. All images should have an alt tag (some text to show if the image is missing or is not displayed on the user's browser). There should be no dead links (links that go nowhere). However, looking at the ranking factors, it is much more beneficial, once the website has been constructed properly, to spend time (and sometimes money) on promoting it to as many good websites as possible.
Free Suggestions
Once a website has its content, with no dead links, alt tags for images, title, description and keywords all set, it is important that you, the client, begin to get the word out. Possible free ideas are as follows:
- Search for your service/product on Google, note the non-competitor sites that appear (such as canpages, 411, business directories, blogs, forums and so on). Contact those services and make sure a link with correct text is placed on them, pointing to your home page.
- Add your business to Google Places. It is free and will often come up when Google is aware of where the user is located.
- Start a twitter feed and/or facebook page. Post on there often, with free advice and content and place a link to your website prominently.
- Consider having articles on your website that broaden out your possibility of being linked to; if the articles contain expert knowledge in your domain then they will be accessed by people who may not have initially considered your products/services.
- Contact some high-profile websites in your domain and ask for a reciprocal link-exchange. This may or may not be accepted based on your current credentials, but it never hurts to ask.
- Contact your local newspaper and ask if you can be featured in an article. Offer readers a free/discounted offer. The newspaper's website online will feature your link if possible and this will really help.
Paid Suggestions
Not all marketing is free, in fact some is very expensive. However, you may be interested in a couple of services that would help your website gain that much-needed traffic.
- Google AdWords - You pay to have your website feature higher in Google's rankings when people search for your keywords/key-phrases in certain geographical regions (for instance "carpets" in "Halifax"). You set a budget for your monthly campaign and each time your website is clicked on, when someone searches for the keyword/key-phrase, you are charged a per-click amount. For instance, "carpets" in the Halifax region may cost 23 cents each time someone clicks through to your website.
- Yellow Pages - Costly but can be very wise, depending on your market. Since there is no real ranking, customers who are used to shopping around and looking for recommendations may not use yellow pages.
Summary
Make sure your website is linked to from as many good websites as possible. Make sure that when somone follows those links, they are presented with what they expected. If you can do this, then you are on the right track.